An ingenious new device that simulates flight is tested in New York, where it will be unveiled in May.

Yehuda Duenyas, as a little boy, wanted to be able to fly. Who didn't? But the New York-based artist and director, now 37, also "wanted to design rides for Disneyland" – dual ambitions that have finally mashed together in a new installation he calls the Ascent.

Hard not to get excited by the sound of this one, which will be unveiled at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre (Empac) in New York in May. It's a sort of flight simulator. Combined with a trapeze. Combined with a computer game. Combined with mind control.

Duenyas explains that users are put into a wire-rigged harness and then fitted with a "futuristic-looking hat", which can read EEGs or brain waves ("Not thoughts, but the electric impulses that your brain generates"). In the right state of Zen-like relaxation, the user can trigger specific brain waves which then feed into special computer hardware and software – Duenyas calls this bit "the infinity simulator" – enabling mental control of the rigging.

The videos of Duenyas and his team testing the machine (vimeo.com/20271253) look fantastic – and scary. Users can float up to about 30 feet. "The more you relax and clear you mind, the higher you levitate. It can be disquieting. Thirty feet is quite high..."

Duenyas has also introduced spacy video and sound elements into the installation – users will be surrounded by video screens, also influenced by brain waves picked up by the headset – aiming to give the experience a dream-like feel. "I think we all want to be able to fly. The Ascent feels like what you imagine from your dreams."

Anybody at Empac will be able to have a go. As for hopeful flyers in the UK, Duenyas hopes the installation will tour in the future.